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Why Time Management Totally Backfires

You probably don’t need research to tell you that people are feeling more and more overwhelmed and overscheduled, but if anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to make this clear, studies do exist. Americans tell pollsters they struggle to find work-life balance and generally feel like they spend their days on a slightly too fast treadmill scurrying to catch up.

But no worries–this problem has an obvious solution, right? All we need is better time management–get more done, choose and batch tasks more wisely, keep tabs on our to-do list more carefully, etc.

That seems reasonable but it’s totally wrong, according to a fascinating article by business psychologist Tony Crabbe that appeared on Quartz recently. The in-depth piece looks at the history of the relationship between work and time (hint: we weren’t always so clock obsessed) and goes on to argue that, as we’ve misdiagnosed what ails us, the prescribed treatment–time management–is actually making our problems worse.

“Time management, we believe, is the solution to our busyness: if we could organize our time better, we’d be less overwhelmed, happier, and more effective. We are completely wrong on all three counts, and it’s damaging our lives and our careers,” Crabbe writes.